Desertion
by Rock The Rain
Summary: AU - Violet doesn't die. Written for aaronlisa for round 2 of the AHS fiction exchange. One-shot.


**Title: Desertion**

**Author: Rock The Rain**

**Summary: AU Violet/Tate. What if things went a little differently and Violet didn't die?**

**Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: Overusage of the word "bullshit" in Violet's interior monologue. Rated T.**

**Author Notes: My first ever fic for a fiction exchange! At first I had trouble with it, because I sort of already have an AU like this going on. But I found a way to really make it the way I envisioned it. I'm kind of proud.**

******I would like to thank _The Bitter Kitten_ for betaing the early version of this, and a couple of my friends who sadly do not have fanfiction accounts for fine tuning it and providing their harsh, but much needed criticism :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own American Horror Story.**

When we first moved to Los Angeles I didn't expect life to be any more different than it was back in Boston, except for shittier weather and nothing remotely interesting about the place whatsoever. LA was nothing but a stepping stone for me until I was old enough to get the hell out of here. I could go to college, travel, or just get the hell out of here to stay here. That's what ends up happening to young adults, people my age. They get out, but have nowhere to go. I smile bitterly at the thought. Freedom with no where to go, nowhere to be.

It's bullshit is what it is.

But at least I have the choice.

Pulling up to the house that I would be spending at least two more years in, I felt strange. Well, stranger than normal.

Smirking at the thought, I walked up the drive behind my parents, taking in the sight of the old timey structure and the slight chipping of paint on the outside. I immediately knew that if I was going to be stuck in LA, it might as well be in this place.

The inside of the house was even better than the outside. I'd compare it to the house from The Shining, but Stephen King has nothing on this scary ass piece of shit.

When I saw the room that would soon become mine I went to the middle of the room and sat down, my legs crossed. I could already see how I wanted to place my furniture and the decorations that psychologists who weren't my father would have a field day analyzing.

I do believe I've found a home. At least for a little while.

The day I met the boy who would change my life forever was not a good one for me. The weight of everything that has happened before the move and the constant snipes of my parents going back and fourth got to me, and I was dragging the blunt razer across my arm before I knew it. It didn't come as surprise to me that I would eventually begin cutting myself again, but what did shock me was a blonde boy appearing in my bathroom telling me that I did it wrong. I was a little pissed off, but looking into his eyes and seeing his smirk dissolved some of that anger I felt at being interrupted. Maybe I should take his advice and cut horizontally next time.

Though, I knew deep down that I wouldn't do that. I was stronger than that. At least I hoped I was.

The very first conversation we had togethe rwas deeper than any small talk anyone has shown the courtesy of providing me. He saw my scars, told me the stories of his own, and listened when I shared mine. Then it quickly turned toward music as a way of hiding how flustered I was. Though by the way he was looking at me it seemed as though hiding was useless. He saw, and that's the one thing that scared the living hell out of me.

The continuing conversations were much like the first. Serious topics with a bit of shallowness to hide the depth of what sharing these things really meant. Then after a while even the shallow topics seemed like the most important conversations in the world.

When I first ranted to him about my problem with a bully at school I wasn't planning on him trying to help me. The friends I had in Boston only cared about my problems when it was convenient for them, and even then it was just them pretending to listen. With him, it was different. Everything was.

So when he provided me with a plan and a way to be left alone, I took it. I just wasn't expecting what the outcome turned out to be.

When he traumatized the bully, Leah, I wasn't scared of him. Not at all. Looking back on it, I felt betrayed. The only friend I ever had could have seriously hurt me, and did seriously hurt Leah. And I had trusted him.

My judgement really sucks sometimes. Especially when he saved my mother and I from a group of insane dumbasses who wanted to kill us a week later. Part of reenacting a murder that took at the place years before or some shit.

I didn't know how to feel about him then. Why would someone who wanted to hurt me decide to save me? I don't think they would. So I gave him another chance.

I told myself it was because he saved me and I owed him. Not because I actually missed him.

Our first kiss was just a few days after that. We were sitting in my room on the floor, like our first conversation. Only this time instead of talking about music we actually got the chance to listen to it. He sprawled out across from me and turned over on his side, supporting his head with his hand. He stared at me with his eyelids half dropped and his other hand resting over his stomach.

"You wanna know why I saved you from those intruders?"

I looked away from my laptop, which I was using to scroll through to music, to look at him.

"Why?"

He smirked and crawled over to me while I stared at him blankly. Once he got close to me he paused near my face, darting his eyes quickly from my lips to my eyes, smirk still in place. I didn't move away, so he moved closer.

And it just spiraled from there.

Our first date was as perfect as I could expect someone who was interesting in dating me could come up with. When he denied me in my attempt to progress our relationship it stung quite a bit. We hadn't had sex yet, but we had gotten to the point where that was definitely the next step.

When he opted for talking instead of using his mouth for other things, I stopped and listened. He's done the same for me several times. It was my turn to listen this time.

I knew by listening to how he talked that he was just a little eccentric. That's the nice way of saying he was crazy, but I already knew all of this just by the fact that he was seeing my dad.

When the dead breakfast club showed up I was immediately on the defensive.

When I later found out why they were harrassing us, I felt a lot of things. Defensive was not one of them anymore.

I wasn't expecting to overdose on pills. I just wanted to sleep. I didn't want to deal with anything. I just wanted silence.

I got my wish for five minutes until Tate saved my life. I wasn't aware that I even needed to be saved, but once again I was grateful that he did.

He had the capacity to hurt me. Badly.

But here he was, saving me again, and telling me that he loved me.

Things went back to the way we were before. Although who he really was deep down was always in the back of my mind.

The night my mother wanted to leave the house, I looked back towards the porch to meet his eyes. I could leave here with my mom and never come back. I knew who he was and what he was capable of. I couldn't bring myself to care.

So when we ran back into the house and Mom called the cops and I was asked if what she saw was real, I lied.

We had sex for the first time that night.

I was in love.

I went to see my Mother in the mental hospital about a couple of weeks after I intentionally sent her away. She was scrawled across the bed that was really a cot with hair matted on her forehead. She didn't say a word to me. She only stared with a dead look in her eyes.

I knew in my mind that I should have felt guilt for doing this to her, but the only thing I felt was anger. Towards her.

As I looked into her cold eyes I no longer saw the fierce woman I caught a glimpse of the night of the intrusion, when she fought back with everything she had to get us out alive. That night I felt like I bonded with her, something we've never really done before.

It made me proud of her.

Now, seeing her like this, laying there. Giving up. It made me sick.

She could have fought harder than she did to prove that she wasn't crazy. She could have done it, I know it.

But she took the cowards way out, and left us.

So I turned my back and left the hospital.

My Dad wanted to send me away. Far away. On some level I knew he wasn't above it. I knew it, but I never actually thought he would.

I told Tate so.

He told me he could fix it.

I trusted him to do so, but when he came back to the attic an hour later, he caught me off guard completely. He was frantic.

As he asked me to committ suicide with him I couldn't think. Why would someone who supposedly loved me and wanted me safe want me to die? To be stuck in one place forever?

I ran.

That was when I knew I couldn't trust Tate anymore. I probably never should have.

My Dad was passed out in his office. I struggled to wake him up. He wouldn't budge.

"Violet, I'm just trying to keep us together. That's what you want, right?" His eyes were pleading. I stared at him, more frightened than I'd ever let him know.

"Go away, Tate."

I was on my guard the next few days. Tate never tried to bother me. It felt as if I felt nothing and everything all at once, and I wanted it all to just stop. I wasn't even about to try to find those pills.

I thought of my blade that I hadn't used for so long. Just as I was about to drag it over my arm I heard a voice I didn't want to acknowledge behind me.

"Violet, please. Don't do this." I met his eyes to see he was crying. "Not because of me. I can't stand to see you hurt yourself."

"Last I heard you didn't mind if I hurt myself because of you." And I dragged it across my skin as he let out a sob.

My Mom gave birth at the mental hospital. I hadn't seen her yet. Dad said she lost one of the babies and she wasn't doing so good herself.

I didn't feel bad.

I didn't feel anything.

But I did when my Dad told me I was going to boarding school. I felt relief.

I went to see my Mom again, the day after Dad told me that I'd have a few days to pack up my stuff. She wasn't concious. Resting my hand on the bed, I stared for a moment before turning and leaving, the guilt finally plaguing me.

"So, you're leaving, huh?" Tate asked as I packed my stuff. I didn't turn to acknowledge him. "Yep."

"Just like that?" He was crying. "Did I mean nothing to you?"

That broke me. It really did. But I couldn't stay.

And in spite of everything I didn't hate him. I could never hate him.

I turned to meet his eyes. "You mean everything to me."

And I left it at that, finishing packing my things.

I had a life to live.

He wasn't part of it anymore. He never could be.


End file.
